How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode (Step-by-Step) 

Want to put your WordPress website in maintenance mode?

With maintenance mode, you can temporarily disable your website and show a clear message to visitors about when it will return. You can also control who can access your site while you work on it.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to eaisly put WordPress in maintenance mode step-by-step.

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When Should I Enable Maintenance Mode in WordPress?

Over the years, I’ve been in many situations where putting a WordPress site in maintenance mode was crucial. Here are some scenarios I’ve experienced:

I’ll never forget the time I was overhauling a client’s theme and realized midway that I needed to update several core WordPress files. Quickly activating maintenance mode saved me from exposing a half-broken site to visitors.

Security is another critical area where I’ve relied on maintenance mode. After reading a Sitelock report that revealed an average of 50 attacks per day on websites, I became more proactive about security updates.

Here are some more situations when enabling maintenance mode is a smart idea:

• Troubleshooting: Errors and glitches happen. Maintenance mode gives you space to fix things without live visitors stumbling across problems.
• Website Migration: Before moving to a new web hosting provider, put your site in maintenance mode to keep things smooth.
• Launching a New Site: Building anticipation? Hide your work-in-progress site and reveal it with a splash when ready.
• Any Other Downtime: Planned outages, vacations – maintenance mode lets you control when your site is offline.

With this in mind, let’s look at how to put your WordPress website in maintenance mode.

How to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode The Easy Way

 I’ve found the easiest way to set up maintenance mode is by using a dedicated WordPress maintenance mode plugin.

After trying various options, I’ve come to rely on SeedProd. It’s a landing page builder that includes maintenance mode features that have saved me so many hours of work.

Why I Use SeedProd:

• Templates: Choose from 300+ pre-designed customizable templates to get started quickly.
• Lead Capture: Collect emails with opt-in forms while your site is down so you can notify people when it’s back up.
• Themes: You can even use the plugin to create a custom WordPress theme.
• Support: Help is on hand for navigating the plugin’s settings if you need it.
• Trust: SeedProd is used on over 1 million websites

Now, let me walk you through how I use SeedProd for maintenance mode.

First, click here to get started with SeedProd. Then, install and activate the plugin in your WordPress dashboard.

If you need help with this step, check out this guide on installing SeedProd.

Create a WordPress Maintenance Page

After activating the plugin, go to SeedProd » Landing Pages and click the Set Up a Maintenance Mode Page option.

SeedProd offers many design options for your maintenance page. You can either build your page from scratch or use a ready-made landing page template.

After clicking the button to set up your page, you’ll see various templates.

Hover your mouse over any maintenance page design you prefer and click the checkmark icon to launch it in the visual frontend page builder.

Customize Your Maintenance Mode Template

Now, you can customize the content of your maintenance page template to align it with your brand. For example, to change the maintenance mode message, click the message on the page and edit it using the inline editor.

Here, you can enter a custom maintenance message explaining the downtime to your visitors. Clicking the Advanced tab in the left-hand panel will allow you to change the color, font, spacing, and text-shadow settings.

You can also change the content order by dragging any page element (called page blocks) from one place to another.

SeedProd also makes it easy to add extra elements to your page, including contact forms, signup forms, social buttons, and more. All you need is to choose the page block from the left-hand panel and drag it into position on your page.

For example, you can add a countdown timer that shows how long it is until maintenance is over. You’ll find that block in the Advanced Blocks section. Click the countdown timer icon and drag the blog onto your live page preview.

Now click the timer on your page to view the different customization settings.

You can select the timer type, end date and time, and size, and even add a custom message and CSS.

The countdown timer block also comes with several pre-made block templates you can implement with a single click. Just select the Templates tab and pick one you like.

Repeat this process for all the elements you want to change on your maintenance page.

Almost all of the different page blocks come with templates, while the advanced blocks can help generate leads for your page, which include:

• Giveaways – Add a RafflePress online contest to your page to attract leads while you’re under maintenance.
• Contact Form – Connect a WPForms contact form to your maintenance page so users can get in touch.
• Optin Form – Allow users to sign up for your newsletter. It also includes a checkbox to keep your form GDPR compliant.
• Social Profiles – Get more social media followers with prominent social buttons and social media icons.
• Star Rating – Increase trust by showing customer reviews and positive ratings.

Besides offering tons of page blocks, SeedProd has various pre-made sections you can add to your page with a few clicks. Just click the Sections tab in the left-hand panel and find the section you need.

To add a FAQ section, click the FAQ heading and choose one of the layouts available by clicking the Plus icon.

SeedProd will automatically add the section to the bottom of your maintenance mode landing page. Then, all you need to do is customize it with your content.

When you’re happy with your maintenance page design, click the Save button in the top-right corner of the screen.

Enable WordPress Maintenance Mode

The final step is to turn on maintenance mode for your WordPress website. Go to SeedProd » Pages from your WordPress admin area and find the maintenance mode section.

Then click the Inactive toggle to activate the WordPress site in maintenance mode.

Logged-in users will usually be able to access the backend, just like you did before. But your visitors will see the maintenance page you just created with SeedProd. Even better, your page won’t be affected if you update WordPress.

Control Website Access for Logged in Users

By default, your maintenance mode page is only visible to visitors who aren’t logged in. Your existing users, such as members, customers, or clients, can still access their accounts without interruption.

However, if you want to give specific users access during maintenance, you can. Simply edit your maintenance page, then click the Page Settings tab at the top.

SeedProd provides options for maintaining access to your site during maintenance mode. Enabling ‘Exclude Default’ allows visitors to access standard login and account-related pages (login, admin, dashboard, account), preventing lockouts.

The ‘Bypass Cookie’ toggle allows access to users with specific browser cookies, although this may be affected by caching plugins.

For direct control over access, you can select specific user roles. To do so, click ‘Add Role’ and choose from the available options.

When you’re happy with your settings, click Save.

Exclude Pages from Maintenance Mode

SeedProd also offers control over maintenance mode access by allowing you to specify which pages are included or excluded. This is useful if, for instance, you have a custom login page or want to keep your contact form accessible for support inquiries.

To manage this, go to SeedProd’s ‘Include/Exclude URLs’ settings. Select either ‘Include URLs’ or ‘Exclude URLs’ and enter the desired page links.

When you’re happy with how the maintenance page is set up, click the ‘Save’ button to save your updated access control settings.

How to Turn off WordPress Maintenance Mode

When you have finished updating and maintaining your website, you can disable maintenance mode so the public can reaccess your website.

You can turn off your maintenance mode by heading to your WordPress admin area and accessing the SeedProd dashboard.

Then, it’s as simple as clicking the toggle from the Active to Inactive position.

Maintenance is now disabled and deactivated, and anyone can access your website.

WordPress Maintenance Mode FAQs

I get a lot of questions from our readers on this topic. Below, I’ve answered some of the most common questions about putting WordPress in maintenance mode.

Next, More WordPress Maintenance Mode Tips

I hope this article helped you learn how to put WordPress in maintenance mode. All that’s left is to dive in and create a powerful maintenance page that secures more leads and grows your business.

You might also find the following related guides helpful:

• WordPress Stuck in Maintenance Mode? Here’s How to Fix It FAST
• Coming Soon vs Maintenance Mode: Learn The Difference
• How to Create a Modern WordPress Under Construction Page
• How to Put WooCommerce in Maintenance Mode (4 Easy Steps)

Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and feedback.

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Stacey Corrin Writer

Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

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